Sunday, June 23, 2013

Just after canceling an appearance on 'Today,' the celebrity chef and Food Network star issued a formal video statement to make amends for her use of the N-word. Alas, her home channel still gave her the boot.

By Margaret Eby AND Don Kaplan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Paula Deen shares recipes on 'Good Morning America' in January. With her Food Network contract ending, TV audiences may not be seing much more of the meal maven.
Stick a fork in this butterball — she’s been deep fried and deep-sixed by the Food Network.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen, 66, was canned by the cable channel on Friday after releasing a groveling video apology on YouTube for using the N-word and cracking racist jokes at her Savannah, Ga., restaurant.

Paula Deen gave a video statement Friday to address her racism scandal.

“I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong I have done. I want to learn and grow from this,” she said in the 45-second video posted on YouTube. “Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable.”

Paula Deen photographed at home in Savannah, Ga. Deen became a household name with 'Paula's Home Cooking' on Food Network.

But the ham-handed apology was not enough to save her job with the Food Network.
Friday, officials at the channel, where Deen rose to fame with her brand of butter and deep-fried fueled down-home Southern cooking, said they would not renew her contract, which expires at the end of the month.

Between her TV work, speaking engagements, cookbooks, licensing and endorsements, Forbes estimates her wealth at $17 million. Network sources said she was paid between $10,000 and $20,000 for each episode of her various shows.

'Paula Deen prepares to issue a video statement about her racism scandal on June 21, 2013.

Deen's callous language ballooned into a humiliating scandal earlier in the week, when the star admitted in a deposition for a $1.2 million discrimination trial that she had “of course” used the N-word in the past.
In her deposition she also said: “It’s just what they are — they’re jokes ... most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks ... gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don't know — I just don't know what to say,” Deen reportedly said in her defense. “I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”